


To be Tested

by So_Ill_Continue



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (only mentioned), Blindness, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf, Gen Work, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mission Fic, Missions Gone Wrong, Muteness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Season/Series 03, Pre-Voltron Lion Swap, Restraints, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-07-19 20:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19979800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/So_Ill_Continue/pseuds/So_Ill_Continue
Summary: If the Ombians judged the team to be worthy, Allura had explained, they would be invaluable allies in the fight for the fate of the universe. Keith had immediately felt his hackles rise at the possibility of a negative judgement (and at the idea of being judged in the first place, honestly), but Lance had already started babbling about how ofcoursethey would approve of them, they were thePaladins of Voltron,the universe’slast hopefor freedom and justice and peace and- Keith could only listen to so much before his brain went through some sort of reboot and he half dismissed, half forgot his doubts. Shiro was always telling him how he should be more optimistic anyways. He had figured that that was a good time to start.Yeah, he’d been wrong.--While on the hunt for allies, the Paladins are unwillingly launched into a dangerous test. And as if being stranded on an unfamiliar planet wasn't enough, they soon find that much more than just their gear is missing.This mission could well be their last.





	1. Into the Jungle

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> I've been sitting on this fic for a while in the vague hope that I'd finish at least half of it before I started posting. Well, I did at least get pretty far into the second chapter so...I'll count it as a win.  
> If any of you are still waiting on _I can fix this,_ I most certainly am not done with it yet and you should expect an update fairly soon.  
> In any case, I hope you enjoy!

Keith knew he was in trouble the second he awoke. He knew it by the heavy fog muddling his brain, by the bells ringing in his ears, by the cotton balls packed into his mouth. He knew it by the fact that, unlike the surface currently underneath him, his bed was not covered in a moist, spongy moss. And above all, he knew it by the ropes binding his arms behind his back. 

So, he concluded as he forced himself to relax and remain still, he’d apparently been captured. But how? The last thing he remembered was being briefed by Allura on the-

On the Ombians. 

_Quiznak._

Keith’s breathing hitched as his memories returned. Allura was to join the paladins on a diplomatic mission that would hopefully draw the Ombians into the Voltron Alliance. Unlike most of their other allies, the Ombians presented a rare opportunity to add to the brute strength of the rebel army; they were known throughout the universe for their sheer, nearly godlike power –even the proud Princess Allura had seemed to be in awe of them. If they judged the team to be worthy, she had explained, they would be invaluable allies in the fight for the fate of the universe. Keith had immediately felt his hackles rise at the possibility of a negative judgement (and at the idea of being judged in the first place, honestly), but Lance had already started babbling about how of _course_ they would approve of them, they were the _Paladins of Voltron,_ the universe’s _last hope_ for freedom and justice and peace and- Keith could only listen to so much before his brain went through some sort of reboot and he half dismissed, half forgot his doubts. Shiro was always telling him how he should be more optimistic anyways. He had figured that that was a good time to start.

Yeah, he’d been wrong.

Lance was still prattling on when Allura announced they were entering the atmosphere of the Ombians’ home planet, Plexa. Keith remembered catching a glimpse of what looked like a scarlet tree canopy when a terrible roar erupted in his mind. _A test for the worthy,_ it had thundered over what he only now recognized as his teammates’ cries of pain. _And a sacrifice for the test._

And then he woke up here, listening to the sounds of what he guessed were the chirps of alien birds and feeling the wet moss gradually soak the front of his shirt and pants. 

A cautious peek from under his eyelids confirmed what he had already surmised. He was in a jungle of some sort with, thankfully, no sight of their abductors. But a soft moan from behind reminded him he wasn’t alone. After spending an uncomfortable moment gathering his legs underneath him, he straightened to his knees and pivoted around. 

Lance, who was likely the source of the noise, looked to still be in the early stages of waking. A few feet further off laid the inert form of Pidge, clearly unconscious but, judging from the steady rise and fall of her narrow chest, relatively unharmed. And then there was Shiro, fully alert and just _staring_ at him.

Keith’s heart lurched in shock, not having expected anyone else to be awake in this silence. “Christ, Shiro!” he swore, his face heating. “You scared the hell outta me! You gotta say something next- what are you doing?” Keith interrupted himself as Shiro hastily closed the distance between them and knelt down behind him. Wordlessly, he gripped Keith’s bound arms, attempting to maneuver the limb and, when that failed, twisting the skin of his left forearm underneath the bindings. 

Unnerved by his leader’s silence and bizarre determination to give him an Indian rug burn, Keith tried to turn to face the older man. “Shiro, what’s going on?”

But Shiro didn’t answer, instead only expelling a short puff of air Keith assumed to be a sigh against his bare arms. Apparently having completed his task, Shiro positioned himself in front of Keith, rested his prosthetic hand reassuringly on the confused teen’s shoulder, and displayed the soft underside of his flesh forearm. 

Keith felt his eyes widen as he recognized the shining, black swirls for words _._

“Orders from the leader?” Keith read, brow scrunched in thought. He locked eyes with the man in front of him, searching for answers. Only when Shiro noiselessly breathed a proactive “It’s okay” did it finally click. 

Holy shit. The Ombians had taken Shiro’s _voice_ as their _sacrifice._

Keith’s breath caught in his throat, head feeling uncomfortably light as the chiming in his ears reached a new pitch. They took Shiro’s _voice!_ How in the world were they going to make it out of this without Shiro being able to guide them? And oh God, what about the others? Shiro didn’t appear to be in any physical distress, but Keith hadn’t really taken a good look at the rest of his teammates. What if instead of their voices the Ombians had decided to take an organ or something and they were over there dying and-

A soft squeeze on the shoulder tore Keith away from his spiraling thoughts. Shiro was looking at him carefully, a small twinge of concern betrayed in the crease between his brows. Once Keith managed to focus enough to hold his gaze, he pulled a slow, deliberate inhale through his nose, soundlessly releasing the breath a moment later out his mouth. Encouraged by another small squeeze, Keith copied the action, forcing himself to calm down and focus. Getting worked up would only make things worse. 

_Better?_ Shiro mouthed, lips clearly over-exaggerating the word in order to compensate for his new found muteness. Keith nodded, doing his best to force down the hot blush creeping across his pale features. Shiro had literally _just_ found out he could no longer speak and he was not only already adapting to the situation but he was also comforting Keith, who was supposed to be acting as his right hand man and not a lost child.

“Yeah, thanks. But what about the others?” Keith cast his gaze over Shiro’s shoulder, once again sweeping his eyes over the prone figures of Lance and Pidge.

The former of the two groaned again, although this time the noise was louder, intentional. Shiro was at his side in under a tick, followed by a far less graceful Keith.

“I feel like I was hit by a train,” Lance whined, rubbing at his eyes while Shiro knelt down and helped him into a sitting position. 

“Oh good, Lance’s still got his voice,” Keith muttered dryly from his spot opposite Shiro, prompting a vaguely disapproving look from the oldest Paladin.

“And it wasn’t a very nice train, either,” Lance continued, giving his face one last it’s-time-to-wake-up-now rub before opening his eyes. “It was a-”

Whatever he planned on saying next visibly died on the young Paladin’s tongue. Keith’s earlier anxieties suddenly returned full force. Clearly something was wrong, but what was it? The Red Paladin raked his eyes up and down his teammate’s body, but other than the strange, burlap-like clothes Lance (and the rest of them, now that he thought about it) was wearing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. What had the Ombians taken?

“Lance?” Keith ventured uncertainly after an imploring look from Shiro, who clearly would be saying something incredibly comforting and helpful if he were able. “Everything okay? What’s wrong?”

Lance had gone very pale as he stared unblinkingly off into the distance. There was a long moment of silence, but just as Keith was starting to think an answer might not be coming, Lance spoke.

“I can’t see,” he whispered, hands shaking in his lap. The volume rose, voice pitching in panic. “Holy son of quiznak, I can’t _see!_ Keith, what in the world is going- Ah! _What are you doing?_ ”

“Relax Lance,” Keith replied, trying his hardest to keep the tremor from his voice. If Lance really was blind, he needed to sound strong, capable. Even if he felt like anything but. “Shiro just wants to look at your arm.”

Lance eyes widened, a look of surprise mixing in with the fear and confusion. _Oh God,_ Keith realized suddenly, his stomach executing a tight flip. _He didn’t know that that wasn’t me._

Shiro’s hands were already lighting across the limb, giving the hand a reassuring squeeze before flipping it over. Sure enough, neat, shiny words were printed seamlessly into the flesh.

“What is it?” Lance wheezed, just barely warding off hyperventilation.

“Words,” Keith supplied thickly. “We all have them. Yours says ‘Aim from the eagle.’”

A sharp breath whistled up Lance’s nose. “The sacrifices?”

Shifting ever so slightly, Shiro wrapped his arm around Lance’s shoulders and gave his hand another comforting squeeze. Lance all but melted into the embrace, clenching his eyes shut und turning his nose into their leader’s shoulder. Just as he was seemingly able to fully relax, however, the Blue Paladin’s entire body tensed, the sudden movement effectively tearing himself out of Shiro’s arms.

“What about the others?” he asked quickly, what Keith suspected to be guilt and terror lining his features. “Are Allura and Coran here too? What did everyone else lose? And _oh my God,_ what about Hunk?”

Keith inhaled sharply at the sudden realization; Hunk had been recuperating in a cryo-pod after sustaining some not so superficial wounds during their last mission. With enough time and proper care, he was expected to make a full recovery. But if he were to be taken out after a mere hour?

Keith swallowed. That would not be good.

Once again, Keith was jerked out of his thoughts by Shiro, this time in the form of an urgent tug on the hem of his shirt. After catching his eyes, the older man tilted his head pointedly at Lance, who he had successfully recollected into his arms. Keith felt his gut clench uncomfortably. Right. Despite being without a doubt the least qualified, he was now Shiro’s voice. Which meant he should probably not just sit idly by while Lance slipped into a panic attack.

“Hey, relax, don’t get so worked up,” Keith announced in what he hoped was an authoritative voice. It must have come out wrong though, because all it elicited was another sharp tug on his shirt, a disapproving look from Shiro, and a most definitely not calm Lance.

Alright, maybe it had come out sounding a little aggravated. Keith supposed old habits really did die hard.

“Uh, I mean, everything’s going to be fine,” Keith tried again, doing his best to inject some empathy and reassurance into this typically sharp voice. “I can see Pidge from over here, and her breathing’s normal, alright?” The Red Paladin flicked his gaze to Shiro, relieved to see approval glimmering in his eyes. After another encouraging nod, Keith added, “And, I’m, um, sure the others are fine, too. We just have to find them, okay?”

Lance worried his lip for a moment before nodding in agreement, his breathing stabilizing. “Yeah, okay. Let’s…let’s just be quick about it, alright?”

“Sounds good.” Keith made to get up, but an unexpected idea gave him pause. Lance was still clearly terrified, his ability to adapt to new (and frightening) situations likely hindered by a lack of visual information. If they were going to get through this, everyone would need to be at his or her best -minimizing the impact of their handicaps as much as possible was going to be a big part of that. So, if Lance was struggling to orient himself without his sight, maybe Keith could help ground him some other way.

“But before we get started,” he pivoted clumsily, skin feeling a couple sizes too tight, “maybe I should fill you in on our surroundings a bit? You know, to help you get your bearings or whatever?”

For a moment, as he watched Lance’s face screw into a look of defiant arrogance, Keith regretted his words. But the expression was gone just as quickly as it had come, replaced by one of (possibly grateful?) resignation. “That’s probably a good idea,” Lance ultimately admitted, looking as if Keith had somehow dealt a major blow to his ego.

Shiro, on the other hand, looked positively delighted by the offer, embarrassing amounts of pride practically radiating off him. He smiled once more at the typically gruff boy before tilting his head in Pidge’s direction. Keith nodded, cheeks flushing.

“While we’re doing that, I think Shiro’s gonna check up on Pidge,” he narrated awkwardly, already exhausted by his newfound role. He prayed whatever Pidge was lacking wouldn’t preclude her from communicating with the three of them. He didn’t know how much longer he could attempt to translate Shiro’s impromptu sign language into actual Shiro-level words of encouragement and leadership. He was already way past winging it and things weren’t likely to get any easier from here on out.

Just bringing up their smallest teammate seemed to instill Lance with a fresh sense of strength. “Good thinking,” he affirmed as he turned his head somewhat to the left, although his approximation missed by at least a few inches. “Go ahead, Shiro.”

With one last squeeze on the shoulder, the man did just that, leaving the Paladins of the Red and Blue Lions alone. Keith surveyed his surroundings once more, trying to string together a coherent description of the alien environment. It seemed to be a strange mix of jungle and technicolor. Gone were the familiar greens and browns of Earth flora; they were replaced by ruby treetops, silver grass-like brush, and soggy yellow moss.

Keith was about to relay as much when Lance decided to speak up. “They took Shiro’s voice, didn’t they? The Ombi-whatevers, I mean.”

Keith blinked, caught off guard by the uncharacteristically astute observation. “How did you know?”

Lance snorted, shooting a mildly affronted look about a foot over Keith’s left shoulder. Keith resisted the urge to shift and meet his gaze – for some reason, it was incredibly unnerving for Lance to overestimate his height so casually. “Hey, I might not be as smart as the rest of Team Voltron, but I’m actually pretty quick on the uptake when it comes to people. And Shiro’s clearly compensating physically for not being able to say his usual rallying leaderly stuff.”

“Yeah,” Keith agreed, frowning. Sure, it was no secret that Lance wasn’t exactly the brains of the team, but he was normally so full of bravado and showmanship that Keith had honestly believed he didn’t care. But without his sight, Lance didn’t quite seem able to pull off his usual blinding bluster. It was like Keith was watching his confidence leak right out of him – if, he realized suddenly, it was even there in the-

“Plus,” Lance continued, cutting off Keith’s latest train of thought, “even if none of that tipped me off, you suddenly going all awkward-chatty on me really sealed the deal.” Sightless eyes glimmered as a blood-boiling smirk split the Blue Paladin’s face. “I mean hell, I think at one point you were even trying to be _nice_ to me! What’d the Obi-Wans take from you? Your edgy-loner-boy-ness?”

Keith’s cheeks darkened in anger, but before he could figure out how exactly to land a hit of the back of Lance’s head -bound and sitting as he was- he caught Shiro’s gaze from his perch near a now vaguely alert Pidge. His lips were pressed into a tight, pale line, his brows slightly raised and furrowed. Shiro then shook his head widely, as if his meaning hadn’t already been clear. _Please don’t make our situation any worse._

Keith sucked in a long, sharp breath through his nose, feeling his eye twitch with restraint. Reminding himself that this wasn’t a termination of deserved retaliation but a postponement (and internally chanting his mantra of _patience yields focus, patience yields focus_ more than a couple times), Keith answered, “Actually, my hands are bound.” _But believe me,_ he thought savagely, _as soon as I get them loose, you’ll know._

“Huh,” Lance responded, only seeming to be slightly surprised by the Herculean levels of self-control Keith had just displayed. “Well maybe that’ll stop you from being such a hot head this time around.”

Okay, clearly Shiro leaving the two of them alone had been a terrible idea. It was time to remedy that before Keith said (or did) something truly damaging. “I’m going to check on Pidge,” he growled, shifting back onto his knees before finally rising to his feet. As he was walking away, however, inspiration struck -and just because he was practicing restraint didn’t mean he couldn’t mess with the guy _a little bit_.

Grinning smugly, he called back, “Careful when you get up though, Lance. I don’t think those weird gooey things would take very kindly to being stepped on.”

“Ha ha, very funny!” Lance retorted, audible anxiety undercutting his dismissive words. “I know there’s nothing there…right? Keith, there _is_ nothing there, isn’t there?”

Pushing his satisfaction at Lance’s new predicament aside, he lowered himself back to the jungle floor, hiding a wince as the coarse not-grass poked him through the thin pants. Keith was already missing his Paladin armor – and there hadn’t even been a fight yet.

“Hey,” he greeted from his position at Pidge’s feet. She watched him carefully, eyes seeming to analyze his every movement. He had only seen such intensity from the girl when she was perched in front of a screen, fingers flying over the keys in a million different combinations and mind operating at speeds he could only imagine. To have such a look directed at him was… unsettling.

He opened his mouth again but paused as her eyes went from general, all-encompassing observation to laser-focused on his lips in an instant. Whatever he had previously planned on saying flew from his mind, so he defaulted to the first logical thing he could think of. “Uh, you okay?”

“Am I okay?” she echoed, blinking slowly. She paused, her eyes still locked on his face, and it took Keith a moment to realize she was waiting for some kind of verification.

“Um, yeah?” Keith supplied, unease pooling in his stomach.

Pidge drew in her legs with a soft sigh, a torrent of emotions flashing across her face far too quickly for Keith to decipher. But then her features smoothed into an expression of exhausted embitterment. “Well,” she drawled, her lip quirking darkly, “I’ve gone deaf, but other than that I’m just peachy.”

“Oh,” was all Keith could manage. What else was there to say?

“Yeah,” Pidge responded, her casual air faltering a bit as she struggled through a deep swallow. Then she shrugged. “‘Answers from the inquisitive,’ apparently. Honestly, it seems like a bit of a leap in comparison to the rest of yours, but I guess there’s only so many senses to take before-”

“You already know what mine says?” Keith interrupted, heart speeding up. Between Lance’s inability to read and Shiro’s inability to speak, his own tattoo (or whatever the Ombian equivalent of a tattoo was) had been thus far been kept fully out of sight and therefore mostly out of mind. “How’s that possible? _I_ don’t even know yet!”

Pidge blinked at him. “What do you mean? Shiro told me.”

Keith nearly sputtered at the casual response, dark eyes flicking suspiciously between the two other Paladins. “But he can’t talk! And even if he could, you’re still deaf.”

Pidge rolled her eyes at that, a snort of laughter catching in her nose. “Yeah, no duh. How do you think we’re talking right now? I can lip-read, dummy.”

“Really?” Keith asked stupidly, although he tried not to judge himself too harshly, at least for the moment. After all, he had just woken up on an alien planet and then promptly drafted into some sort of weird leadership role despite the fact that Shiro was right freaking _there_. And hell, he was impressed with the little squirt.

“Yup,” Pidge confirmed, grinning a cocky grin that was so, so much better than the bitter smirk of just a few minutes before. “Taught myself a while back, when I was still slinking around the Garrison trying to pick up anything I could about my Dad and Matt. What can I say? It comes in handy every once in a while.” She paused for a moment, pursing her lips and turning away, before murmuring forlornly, “Not that I thought I’d ever be using it like _this.”_

At that Shiro reinserted himself into the conversation by wrapping a comforting hand around Pidge’s tiny one, giving her a reassuring smile when she turned her eyes to his. He mouthed something then, far too fast for Keith to make it out. Whatever it was, though, prompted a small laugh from the younger Paladin, and Keith was suddenly overwhelmingly grateful that the two were able to communicate. For both their sakes.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Pidge replied, eyes just barely over-bright with unshed tears. She gathered her feet underneath herself and stood before taking a moment to brush detritus off her clothes. “There’ll be time for that once we find the- well that’s just fucking sexist.”

The abrupt verbal U-turn sent Keith fumbling gracelessly as he rose to his feet. He was about to question the pivot when he caught sight of Pidge’s own burlap-like garment and realized that no, it actually wasn’t identical to the rest.

“Sure, give the girl the fucking _dress,”_ she huffed angerly, ignoring Shiro’s light rebuke of her language on her shoulder as she attempted to tug the scratchy material over her knees. “It’s not like we’re gonna be trekking through a quiznaking _jungle_. No, it’s _fine_. I mean, are women really people anyways? And hey,” she continued as she spotted her bare toes wiggling in the baby-blue colored dirt, “where are the matching high heels? Can’t be a proper lady without high heels.”

Keith took purposeful step forward and was rewarded with a swivel of the girl’s head. “Come on, Pidge, we don’t have time for this,” he chided, jaw stiff in irritation. “We need to focus on finding the others.”

She straightened with a huff. “Yeah, I know that,” Pidge responded matter-of-factly. “But I was actually making an important point; if we’re gonna be walking around in the wilderness, we’ll need something in the way of footwear.” Pidge frowned, realizing her poor phrasing, and added, “Or at least something to cover our feet with. Otherwise we’ll be exposing ourselves to who-knows-what.”

Shiro, who had (in Keith’s opinion) adjusted alarmingly fast to his new condition, responded by clapping Pidge on the shoulder and nodding affirmatively at Keith.

“Hey, is Pidge awake now?” Lance called from his position a few yards away. “Because if someone could please update me on the situation, that’d be great.”

Keith, unenthused by the idea of once again playing translator/narrator for the sightless Paladin, looked hopefully toward Pidge. The girl just shrugged.

“Hey, I’m smart, not magical,” she rebuffed, crushing Keith’s last hope of escape. “I only realized he was talking after you and Shiro looked, so I pretty much understood ‘something, something, great.’”

“That _is_ Pidge!” Lance interjected once more, scrambling to his feet, the threat of vicious goo-creatures apparently forgotten. With startling accuracy, he made his way to the rest of the group, only stumbling over a few unearthed roots as he went.

“Yeah, Lance, Pidge is fine,” Keith supplied, hoping to keep the edges of his voice clear of exasperation. After all, due to his blindness and the previous distance, Lance didn’t really deserve it. Not yet, anyway.

Lance worried his lip for a moment, before asking what looked to be the air about a foot to Keith’s left (although it was probably where he thought Pidge was located), “What did they take?”

After a moment of pointed gazes in her direction, Pidge seemed to realize the words were intended for her. So, without any explanation, she approached Lance, grabbed his face in both hands, and angled it down and towards her. “Say that again,” she ordered.

“Uh…” Lance began brilliantly, no doubt startled by the sudden closeness, “What…what did they take?”

“Ah,” Pidge replied, allowing her arms to fall now that she had gained understanding. “My hearing, Lance. They took my hearing.”

“But she can lip-read,” Keith volunteered quickly. Without such information, that interaction would just have been way too weird. And as socially inapt as Keith was, not even he was immune to that level of awkwardness.

But Lance didn’t seem affected by what had happened, not in the way Keith was sure he would’ve been, were their roles reversed. Instead, his whole face twitched, as if struck by some invisible force. “I’m sorry,” Lance offered quietly, resting a sad hand on Pidge’s arm.

“Yeah, well, you won’t have to be for long,” the girl replied resolutely. “We’ll find a way to fix this once we meet up with the others.” Keith watched as a devious glint emerged amongst the determination in the young Paladin’s eyes. It was soon matched by a small, sharp smirk. “And if that way just happens to include a giant robot’s foot and the Ombians’ collective asses?”

Lance snorted, oblivious to Shiro’s disapproving (although noiseless) huff. “That would be just fine by me!” he confirmed, his signature grin lighting his face. “But first we need the others.”

“As much as I hate to agree with Lance,” Keith interjected, the slight so commonplace it was practically instinctual, “he’s right. Priority Number One is to come up with a plan for finding the rest of the team, and I don’t just mean our missing Paladin. Until we know otherwise, we should assume Allura and Coran were caught up in whatever crap these guys decided to pull on us too.”

Lance whipped around to (more or less) face his teammate, evidently not able to let Keith’s quip slide. “Hey, who made you the boss?” he retorted hotly as he folded his arms and quirked an obnoxious brow. “Shiro’s mute, not _gone_ , Keith.”

If he had been able to, Keith would have rubbed his face in exasperation. As it was, he settled for clenching his fists into tight balls behind his back. “I’m not _trying_ to be the boss, Lance,” he countered through gritted teeth. “But seeing as Shiro can only talk to Pidge and we clearly already agree that we need to find the others, I thought we could avoid playing the world’s most annoying game of telephone for absolutely no reason.”

For a brief moment, Keith was actually a little proud that he’d been able to once more keep his response clear-cut and remarkably civil. But apparently some small part of him couldn’t just let that be, because all too soon he found himself adding, “So can you please for once not turn this into another one of your stupid pissing contests?”

Lance bristled, mouth open and sightless eyes burning, and all Keith could think was _Well crap._

“Pissing contest _my ass!_ ” Lance blustered, thrusting an accusing finger in Keith’s direction. “I just don’t want all of us to get killed because you thought some alien bobcat looked at you funny – which is exactly what would happen if we let a hothead like _you_ lead the group!”

And just like that, Keith’s last bit of restraint bit the dust.

“Dammit Lance, I’m not a fucking hothead!” he roared, stomping over to the other Paladin and totally not undermining his own point. “And for the last time, I. Am. Not. _Trying_ to be the leader, not only because that’s Shiro’s job but also because - _newsflash_ \- I don’t freaking want it! All that matters right now is that we keep moving forward, so start acting like a Paladin and get the hell out of the way!”

“Yeah, well, that’s- hey!” Lance yelped, startled by the sudden thwack upside the head. Keith made a similar undignified noise as Shiro’s prosthetic hand simultaneously whapped him as well.

“What the hell, Shiro?” Keith bit, his face flushed from receiving such an undignified punishment. He hadn’t even seen it coming.

“Well, at least he finally shut the two of you up,” Pidge answered, having at some point relocated to round off the little circle on the opposite side of Shiro. “You both were so busy screaming at each other ya seemed to forget about the two of us over here. I couldn’t even read half of what you guys said, since _you_ ” -she jabbed a finger into Lance’s chest- “turned away from me and _you”_ -the same finger turned to stab at Keith- “were running your mouth a mile a minute!” 

Keith’s face now flushed for a completely different reason, and if the way Lance was gnawing on his lip again was any indication, the other boy was feeling the same way. They had been so caught up in their own spat that they had essentially left the other two Paladins behind. And Pidge, who was obviously trying so hard to take her new limitation in stride, had been thoroughly shown just how handicapped she really was.

“Sorry,” Keith murmured, taking a small step back.

“Me too,” Lance added, his head ducked.

Lance opened his mouth to say more, but the words seemed to stick in his throat as a loud crash echoed around them. Keith immediately lowered into a modified ready position, whirling towards the direction of the noise and bracing his feet to stand between the rest of the team and this new source of potential danger.

“What is it?” Pidge whispered harshly, having clearly picked up on her friends’ sudden change in demeanor. Shiro put a calming hand on her shoulder, his eyes scanning the nearest edge of the clearing. He then moved to stand beside his right hand, arm already raised and glowing.

Keith felt Lance move in closer behind him, followed quickly by the sound of his heart’s rapid acceleration. Still, even given his poorly concealed terror, Keith watched from the corner of his eye as Lance searched out Pidge’s form and held her to him protectively.

Silence rang for a few, tense minutes, until it was broken once more, this time by a more familiar sound.

“Hunk!” Lance exclaimed, taking a few impulsive steps forward before colliding with Shiro from behind. This didn’t stop him in the least, as he quickly maneuvered around the unforeseen body and headed toward the sound of Hunk’s stomach emptying onto the jungle floor.

Realization dawning at Lance’s outburst, Shiro deftly move ahead of the unseeing boy. But instead of attempting to stop him, Shiro instead latched onto his hand, swiping at the foliage in front of him with his glowing arm to clear a path. Keith (and a decidedly confused Pidge) followed close behind.

As soon as the prone form was visible, all semblance of thankfulness for having found Hunk was immediately washed away by an icy wave of collective fear. Keith froze in his tracks, merely watching as the remaining three Paladins all but flung themselves to Hunk’s side.

The good news…well, the good news was that the mere hour Hunk had spent in the cryo-pod should have theoretically been enough to offset the worst of his blood loss and perhaps even partially heal some of the third-degree blaster burns.

But, Keith concluded as his teammates rolled the Yellow Paladin onto his back, the rest was bad news. Really, really bad news.

Angry red burns pulsated from several spots on his arms while even more were hidden beneath his identical shirt. Whatever clotting had previously been sealing the two, long diagonal gashes running from Hunk’s right shoulder to his lowest left rib had been nullified, and blood was now freely staining the brown cloth. It looked like the poor guy had ripped them open after falling face first into the powder blue dirt, probably in an ill-fated attempt to find the others. Keith winced. Well, that explained the crash.

But he wasn’t given any more time to think about it, as the frantic voices of his teammates brought him back to the crisis at hand.

“We need bandages!” Pidge reported hurriedly, panic underlying her words, from her spot across Hunk’s shins. The Paladin’s typically kind face was screwed in unconscious pain, his now shirtless body writhing under the weight Shiro was applying with bare hands. Without Pidge at his feet and Lance pinning his hands down above his head, Keith was sure the sturdy boy would have already thrown off the painful pressure. “Someone grab his shirt!”

“No!” Lance objected sharply, sightless eyes brimming with tears. “Until we can get him back into a pod, Hunk will need any protection he can get, and none of our clothes will fit him.”

Keith quickly raced to the girl, doing his best to land gently as he pinned Hunk’s thighs beneath his shins. “Rip mine off,” he ordered, making sure to shape the words as clearly as possible. “I’m used to living in tough climates, my skin can take more of a beating.”

Pidges brows drew together, clearly unconvinced by the illogical assertion. “But-”

“Do it now!” Keith roared over Hunk’s moans. Hunk wouldn’t be able to take much more of this.

Pidge didn’t need any more convincing. With a hacker’s precision and an engineer’s strength, she grasped the neck of his shirt with two hands and swiftly tore it straight down the middle. She followed up with two quick swipes at each of his shoulders, which successfully freed the material from his arms. Keith noticed the change immediately as a cool wind raked over his spine. Night was coming quick.

Freed from her station at Hunk’s legs, Pidge scrambled up to his chest to sit across from Shiro. Just like before, she made quick work of the fabric, converting its base into several fat strips in a matter of seconds. Before she could finish it off, however, Shiro halted her hand. Barely able to keep his balance on the ever-shifting limbs below him, Keith watched his jaw move in soundless speech.

“Compress,” Pidge echoed absently, nodding as Shiro replaced his hand. She then adjusted her grip and ripped down what was once the back of the shirt, before folding the remaining material into two tight rectangles, each about six inches long. She handed them to Shiro. “Here.”

The man nodded his thanks, wasting no time in applying the makeshift compresses to the cuts’ deepest points. The renewed pressure prompted a high keen out from the body below him.

“Hunk?” Lance responded immediately, leaning over his friend’s face. “Hey, buddy, you awake?”

Lance’s face crumpled when no answer met his ears and Keith felt his own gut twist. But then Hunk’s eyelids fluttered.

“Lance?” he croaked weakly, his previous thrashing morphing into violent shivers. He parted his lips again, tongue darting out to soothe the dry skin. “Lance, it hurts.”

The slim boy immediately adjusted his hold on Hunk’s hands, moving from the wrists to instead grasp the palms. “I know, buddy. You’ll be all fixed up soon though, okay? But for now you gotta stop fighting us so we can help you.”

Hunk hands shook as he clutched Lance’s, but after forcing a painful breath through his lungs, his body stilled.

“Good job, Hunk,” Pidge interjected, unsure if Lance would be able to pick up on the change. “Now we’re gonna have to sit you up a bit so that we can wrap some bandages around your chest. Alright?”

Hunk’s face crinkled in thought, giving Keith the strong impression that he was not fully aware of his surroundings. “M’kay,” he whispered after a moment.

“Great,” Pidge answered. She turned to Lance, not that it would make a difference. Force of habit, Keith supposed. “Okay, Lance, Shiro needs to keep pressure on his wounds and I need my hands free to wrap the bandages, and since Keith doesn’t have any hands to begin with…”

“I’m lifting Hunk,” Lance concluded, releasing his friend’s hands and readying his own at Hunk’s shoulders. “Got it.”

“Keith,” Pidge continued as she prepped the first bandage, “you should probably lay down on Hunk’s legs. I don’t know if he’ll be able to stop from moving, and you’ll be much more stable that way than on your knees.”

Seeing as Pidge wasn’t looking at him, Keith didn’t bother actually responding. Instead, he simply lowered himself to the mildly embarrassing position of stomach-across-shins with a small grunt.

“Alright Hunk, Lance is gonna lift you up slowly now, okay?” Pidge announced. Lance immediately began raising his friend by the shoulders, a difficult task no doubt made harder by Shiro’s added force.

When he seemed to be at about a 45 degrees angle, Pidge stopped him. “Okay, that should be enough,” she decided, already threading the first bandage between the two boys. “You’re doing great, Hunk. Just keep breathing, it’ll be over in no time.”

But judging by how Hunk’s head was lolled against his own chest, Keith wasn’t sure if he was lucid enough to hear her. Keith righted himself, unwilling to waste time pinning motionless legs while his teammate slipped away. “Hey,” he ventured, shuffling over to hit between Lance and Shiro. “Hey, Hunk, you gotta stay awake, okay?”

Lance, clearly unaware of Hunk’s worsening condition, visibly started at that, before turning sightless eyes onto the body in his arms.

“Hey, buddy, you with me?” Lance worried his lip, tearing the fragile skin even further. At this point his arms also began to shake, probably from a combination of both emotional and physical exhaustion. “Hunk!? Come on, _hermono_ , say something!”

Shiro then leaned down, pressing a careful ear to Hunk’s upper chest, where the first bandage had already been secured.

“Shiro’s checking his heartbeat,” Keith narrated, silently berating himself for not thinking of such a move earlier.

“How is he?” Pidge whispered a moment later, having apparently finished tying off the bandages. Now, without a task to complete, she clutched her hands nervously to her chest.

Keith had never claimed to be good at reading people, but he realized that all that time with Shiro must have made him the exception, because when he sat up, Keith recognized his expression immediately. One of relief – tentative, but relief all the same.

He then mouthed something to Pidge, which she quickly translated.

“It’s faint, but steady,” she relayed, a shaky smile gracing her lips. “So long as the bandages hold up and the cuts don’t get infected, he should be fine for a while.”

“Looks like the bleeding’s already stopped,” Keith added after a cursory inspection of the bindings, feeling the tension leak out of his own body as well.

“That’s good,” Lance sighed, hugging his friend to his chest. “Let’s get his shirt back on, and then we can figure out our next move, okay?”

* * *

As it turned out, their next move was essentially to – as Keith put it – “do nothing.” Shiro, with Pidge’s assistance, had of course disagreed with the characterization, saying that, seeing how stumbling through an alien jungle at night without the slightest clue of where they were headed was clearly a horrible idea, setting up camp was their best option. It would give them all the chance to come to terms with their new “challenges” (his word) and, most importantly, give Hunk’s wounds enough time to thoroughly clot before they were forced to move him tomorrow.

Lance couldn’t help but agree with them both, at least to some degree. As logical as it was to spend the night hours collecting themselves and emerge fresh for the next day, sitting around what at least _sounded_ like a crackling fire and mourning the loss of his sight wasn’t turning out to be such a great time. Plus, he thought sullenly, he would be stumbling regardless of the time of day; it all looked the same to him.

Lance did his best to relax against the moss-padded tree behind him but found it to be surprisingly difficult without the gift of sight. Every soft buzz made him flinch, every flutter against his arms made him startle. He had never been particularly afraid of bugs or the outdoors in general; after all, he had pretty much grown up in the ocean, which housed all sort of dangerous and objectively creepy organisms. But now that he couldn’t see them, couldn’t even check if they were really there, couldn’t confirm that that snap in the distance was an alien bear or squirrel or someone just getting up to take a leak…

Yeah, it was making him lose his mind a little bit.

So instead he did his best to focus on the weight of Hunk’s head in his lap, the steady rustle of his breathing, the feel of his hair as he carded his hands through it. Lance was just starting to hope that he had finally gotten his anxiety under control when he felt a whoosh of air next to him, followed by a small grunt.

“You’re jumpy,” was all Keith offered in response to Lance’s choked screech. Keith sighed a bit and Lance felt him settle into the trunk beside him. _Huh_ , the boy reflected suddenly. _Must be a pretty big tree._

“Yeah, well, being blind in an alien jungle doesn’t exactly do wonders for my nerves,” Lance bit back, the jab at his bravery hurting more than he was willing to let on. 

“Right,” Keith continued after an awkward moment, “well, Shiro says you should try to get some sleep. You know, since you can’t…uh…”

“Since I can’t keep watch?” Lance finished tiredly. _Useless, useless, useless._

“Yeah.”

The conversation stalled again, but Lance didn’t make a move towards actually falling asleep. Sure, he felt like he hadn’t slept in whatever the Altean version of a week was (despite only waking up a couple vargas ago), but he was simply too on edge. And as badly as his mind was gibbering at him now, he knew it would only get worse when he tried to sleep.

“Hunk’s breathing’s evened out,” Lance volunteered suddenly, both to change the topic and avoid another awful silence. He had never been a fan of quiet before, but now that he couldn’t see it was quiznaking _torture._

“Oh? That’s good,” Keith returned, sounding somewhat surprised. “It’s hard to tell in this light, but I think some of his color’s coming back too. And I don’t see any bleed-through on his shirt, either.”

“Then the bandages are holding,” Lance concluded, his shoulders sagging in relief. He ran his fingers through Hunk’s locks once more, hoping the sensation was as calming for his friend as it was for him.

Lance heard another _thunk_ nearby, this time in front of his crossed legs. His breath hitched a bit, but he managed to keep from bodily reacting.

“Shiro says he’ll be taking first watch,” Pidge informed the group. “Then it’s Keith’s turn, and I’ll go- hey!” Lance heard the quiet sound of a light slap upside the head. He was about to ask for clarification when Pidge groaned. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Shiro, if you’re gonna lecture me, could you at least sit down? I can’t make out what you’re saying from up there.”

Shiro apparently did just that, settling down between Hunk’s unconscious form and Pidge. Lance’s face must have betrayed his confusion, because after a moment Keith muttered, his voice low, “Shiro’s…um…talking.”

“Shiro, that’s absurd,” she protested a moment later, frustration in every word. “I can keep watch just fine! It’s called _watch,_ not _listen.”_ She paused again, presumably while Shiro said his piece. “That’s beside the point!” she burst, air shifting as it was disturbed by her exasperated gestures. “Whatever the Ombians did to knock us out, it’s clearly still in our systems, so we’re _all_ exhausted. But with Hunk out of commission and Lance…” The boy groaned as she trailed off, once again reminded of his uselessness. “…not exactly equipped for this sort of thing, we can’t just leave the entire night to you and Keith!”

“What if Pidge and I took a shift together?” Lance interjected, slightly startled by his own words. But now that the idea was out in the open, he was a little impressed by its merit. “That way she can be the lookout while I do the listening.”

For half a tick, Lance was able to beat back the sense of worthlessness that had been plaguing him ever since he sat down. But it was over as soon as it began.

“No way,” Keith declared flatly, his confident dismissal making Lance’s fists clench. “It would be a waste of manpower to have two people do the job of one.”

“Oh come on!” Lance countered. “The real waste of-” For the first time it wasn’t the voice of another who cut off Lance’s retort, but a hand gripping his own. He leaned over slightly as he was tugged in Shiro’s direction before his loosened fist landed on what felt like Shiro’s cheek.

Then both his hand and the cheek below it were moving side to side, and Lance understood. Shiro was telling him to drop it the only way he could. Lance felt his body deflate, feeling scolded and more than a little betrayed.

“Okay, I get it,” he managed, retracting his limb. He felt a strong hand pat his knee – Shiro, presumably. “Pidge?”

The girl huffed loudly, but eventually acquiesced. “Yeah, okay, but just for tonight.”

“Tonight’ll be the only night,” Keith asserted, conviction seeming to physically radiate off of him. Lance could barely project that much confidence on his best days; how did Keith manage it without even trying? “We’re finding a way off this swamp tomorrow.”

Lance just nodded, exhaustion tugging at every muscle in his body, unwilling to be ignored any further. “I should try to get some sleep then.”

“Right,” Keith assented, shifting noisily as he rose to his feet. “I-” He paused for a second, but then Lance felt another light pat on his knee and heard the same rustling sounds as Shiro rose as well. “I mean, Shiro and I’ll be over there, okay? No more than ten paces away, directly ahead.”

Lance knew Keith was overexplaining for his benefit. Any other day he might have found it endearing – even a sign of comradery or friendship – but today it felt like just another reminder from his rival of how weak he was.

“Yes, Keith,” he answered, disguising his more complex emotions with a childish eyeroll. “And I’ll be right here, sleeping. Good night.”

Keith didn’t respond to that, not that Lance was expecting him to.

* * *

Shiro walked to the place Keith had indicated, frowning deeply, watching as the other boy sat down heavily next to another tree trunk. Communication was something Shiro excelled at, regardless if he was giving a class presentation as a cadet, talking down a particularly irate Iverson as a Captain, or guiding the team as the leader of Voltron. The context didn't really seem to matter; for him, the right words just came naturally.

When Shiro had first met Keith, when he had promised himself to not give up on the troubled kid, that skill had been thoroughly tested. As good as Shiro was at talking, Keith had been just as good at throwing up barriers and committing himself to silence. But eventually he either wore him down or found the right combination of words to say – probably a little of both – and their relationship had blossomed. Now, talking to Keith was one of the easiest parts of his job.

Or it had been. Because God, was he flying by the seat of his pants with this whole muteness thing. So many of the things he thought of as leadership - his orders, his assurances, his gentle reprimands, his words of praise - were just…gone. _Orders from the Leader,_ his arm read. But it was so much more than that.

But Shiro had been standing there far too long; he could tell by the way Keith was staring at him, his lips pursed like he had bit into a particularly sour lemon but didn’t want anyone to know. “You gonna sit down, man? You look beat.”

Shiro smiled quickly, waving his hand in the air as if he could shoo the accusation away. He sat down close to Keith but made sure not to actually touch the boy. For all the progress they had made together, a well-cushioned bubble of personal space was still one aspect Keith clung to…no matter how many times Lance tried to poke and prod him out of it.

But then Shiro noticed the way Keith was shifting around, as if he found the very air to be itchy.

“You okay?” Shiro mouthed after getting his attention with a light tap on the shoulder. When Keith only stared blankly back, Shiro shifted himself around a bit, hopefully in a recognizable imitation.

“Oh,” Keith replied, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just trying to find a position that won’t put my arms to sleep.”

But that wasn’t all, Shiro could tell. Keith was a lean kid, possibly a little unhealthily so, if he were being honest. And despite the hot, humid climate they had been treated to during the day, at night this planet was _cold._ There was only so much a reasonably sized fire could do when you didn’t even have a shirt.

Shiro shook his head for a moment before opening his arms to the boy, gesturing with his fingers encouragingly. Keith, unsurprisingly, just blushed deeper, his eyes shifting from the cushion of Shiro’s chest, to his now-slumbering teammates, to his own knees.

“Shiro, I appreciate the offer, but I’ll be fine. Why don’t I just take first shift? Then I’ll be tired enough to fall asleep wherever.”

Shiro waited until Keith looked up again, his arms in the same position. When Keith met his eyes, he simply smiled and jerked his head back. _Or you could just let me help you._

After another long minute and a last, worried glance at his teammates, Keith conceded and shuffled over. Shiro helped him settle back, positioning his bound arms in the gap between his arm and his chest, and guiding his head to rest on his shoulder. Now if only he could get the kid to actually relax…

With that aim in mind, Shiro inhaled deeply, held the breath for a few counts, before letting it roll out of his mouth. He felt Keith chuckle beneath him.

“Yeah, okay, I get the message,” Keith replied, clearly doing his best to soften his muscles. “You know, even without your voice, you still manage to be pretty preachy.”

Shiro just wrapped his other arm around the boy and squeezed him tightly, his chin digging playfully into the top of Keith’s head. _Damn right I am._

Keith snorted again, his legs folding up and resting lightly on one of Shiro’s outstretched thighs as he leaned more fully against the older man. “Yeah, whatever, old man. You’re just lucky you’re so freaking warm or you’d be all by your lonesome.”

Now it was Shiro’s turn to snort, although it was nothing more than a silent puff of air that barely ruffled Keith’s hair. _Go to sleep, Keith,_ he ordered mentally as he settled in for the first half of the night. _Tomorrow’s already on its way._


	2. A Moment of Calm

Without a moon above for reference, Shiro found it difficult to judge how much time had passed. Everything looked the same, almost to an eerie degree. Same darkness, same stars, same sleeping teammates. The only way he could tell time was moving at all was by the dwindling pile of firewood he and Pidge had collected earlier. So far, he had thrown in seven logs, which he estimated to be roughly equivalent to four hours.

But they were on an alien planet, so who knew? Maybe campfires worked differently here. Maybe it had only been a matter of minutes.

Shiro yawned, the action both conveniently and frustratingly silent, before looking down at the boy tucked into his side. Keith had fallen asleep almost instantly, about six logs ago, and so far he looked to be sleeping peacefully, although his head had fallen from Shiro’s shoulder and now rested on his chest. Shiro had debated shifting it back, but ultimately dismissed the idea, deciding that the risk of a crick was worth a peaceful, uninterrupted rest. He hoped Keith would agree.

A particularly cold wind raked through the campsite, and Shiro clutched Keith closer, trying to gently rub the goosebumps on the kid’s upper arm away. Strained neck or no, having his arms bound so tightly behind him for hours on end was going to garner its fair share of aches and pains. Maybe tomorrow Shiro could convince him to be on the receiving end of a circulation-boosting massage, if such a thing could even be managed around the cords winding from wrist to elbow.

But the far more urgent concern was Hunk. The cuts alone demanded immediate and sophisticated medical attention and the many burns dotting his skin only increased the severity. Not to mention an alien jungle wasn’t exactly a sterile environment and Shiro shuddered to think what havoc an infection would wreak on Hunk’s fragile body.

He had just decided to use this time to brainstorm ways to prevent such a horrific situation when Keith practically flung himself from his arms with a muddled but harsh “Don’t touch me!” He scrambled away on his knees, chest heaving with every breath, eyes blown wide.

Shiro started at the unexpected noise, but his alarm quickly melted into concern. He sat forward, once more lamenting his newfound muteness, because he had seen Keith like this before, years ago, and touching him was risky - for the both of them.

But Keith wasn’t calming down on his own, like he’d eventually learned to do. No, his breathing was becoming more ragged as his arms flexed behind him, back hunched in the effort. Shiro needed to do something to ground him, to remove him from whatever nightmare he was reliving and reorient him to the here and now.

Taking a deep breath, the man edged closer, his movements slow and careful. The slightest error could push Keith into a full-blown panic attack and Shiro wouldn’t forgive himself if he hurt the kid further.

Keith’s head popped up at the sound of his approach, dark eyes pained and sharp and hardened. “It’s okay,” he rasped, although Shiro wasn’t sure who he was trying to reassure. “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay.”

Despite this assertion, his arms continued their fight with their bonds; Shiro could see the lean muscles straining in the fire light. “I’m sorry,” Keith continued between harsh gasps, eyes turning away in embarrassment. “It’s just- the way you were h-holding me- too s-sim-similar- too similar to the way h-he-” He hunched over again as a particularly strong spasm cramped his lungs, leaving him struggling for breath.

Shiro’s stomach twisted, because not only was Keith apologizing for the trauma he suffered while in the foster system, but it was Shiro who had inadvertently triggered it. Something hard settled in his throat, so large and so solid that Shiro doubted he would’ve been able to speak past it anyway.

Abandoned by the words he so heavily relied on, Shiro acted on instinct and placed his flesh hand on Keith’s shoulder. He kept the touch light, unconfining, and prayed that it didn’t trigger anything worse.

Keith’s whole body flinched with such violence that it almost resembled a seizure. But then he was leaning into the touch like a seedling to sunlight, and Shiro could finally breathe again.

“I’m okay,” he repeated, despite his wide-blown eyes and continued shuddery gasps. Still, Shiro thought, at least this time his voice sounded less like a croak. The muted Paladin rubbed small circles on his shoulder with his fingertips in response. He had known for a while about Keith’s...less forgiving experiences in the system, but even with him, Keith was doggedly tight lipped with the details. All he knew, really, is that the abuse happened. And despite Keith’s insistence to the contrary, Shiro should’ve realized that it still haunted him.

Without Shiro to gently prod him, however, there was little chance that Keith would open up now. And without his voice, Shiro wasn’t exactly able to prod. All he could do was keep rubbing tiny circles into Keith’s shoulder and promise himself he would address the problem as soon as this disastrous mission was over.

But as easily as Keith was pegged throughout his life, from the more innocent label of “Emo Kid” to the destructive “problem child,” Shiro knew he was actually full of surprises. Like when, instead of burrowing into the reigning silence, he broke it.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice thick with evaporating adrenaline and…shame? “It’s been a long time since I…since something like this has happened, or I wouldn’t’ve taken you up on your offer in the first place. I…I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

Shiro felt his heart shatter just a little bit more, face crumpling. Keith had been flung into a broken system as a child, thrown this way and that, made to suffer and endure and feel less than human. He didn’t think he knew anyone who had a rougher childhood than Keith, never mind anyone so bighearted and _good_. And now he was feeling ashamed because…what exactly? His mind likened the present to a similar, dangerous past? What injury could he have possibly inflicted on Shiro that wouldn’t look like a papercut in comparison?

But Keith still wasn’t looking at him, couldn’t see his expression or read his lips, and he was terrified to encroach any farther into Keith’s personal space, at least while he could still feel the tension in his muscles under his hand. But then, to his overwhelming relief, Keith was flicking his eyes to Shiro’s face, as if just remembering his inability to answer.

In that moment, there were a lot of things Shiro wanted to say. _I’m sorry_ was definitely at the top, although not just for prompting his flashback. He was sorry for leaving him to go to Kerberos, for abandoning his friend and his brother, who had already gone through way too much in his short life. He was sorry that Keith had to go through any of it in the first place, and that he was made to feel shitty about the damage that had been wrought. He was sorry for convincing himself that Keith was more or less over his past, that by some miracle his year away had translated into a year of healing for the younger boy, much less a year without more damage and relapse into isolation and self-punishment and repression. He was sorry that he’d been acting to save himself instead of to help Keith, to spare himself the pain of truth and guilt, to value convenience over Keith’s wellbeing. And he was sorry that he’d come back to Keith as a companion but not his brother, that he’d broken his promise and had given up on the boy, even if through default.

But this damn curse, because it wasn’t a “challenge” or a “sacrifice,” it was a fucking _theft,_ prevented him from saying any of that, from saying anything at all.

Keith’s eyes widened even further in alarm, his own troubles at least momentarily forgotten. He edged forward, uncertain and afraid and clearly, painfully worried, but before another apology could pass his lips, Shiro threw all caution to the wind. Without a word, he swept the younger man into his arms, as if he could squeeze all of his love and pleas for forgiveness into the small frame.

For a horrible, blood curdling moment, Shiro regretted his decision as he felt Keith tense even further. But before his panic could appropriately swell, Keith was melting into the embrace, his mind likely seeing the miles of difference between this hold and the dangerous ones in his past.

And if Shiro cried, he knew Keith couldn’t hear it.

* * *

Pidge was the first to wake up, not because she was any sort of morning person but rather because Lance had sleep-kneed her in the chest. Apparently, once the air is forcibly launched from your lungs, sleep is no longer really an option.

At least it was morning, if barely. The planet’s sun – which was red, like in _Superman,_ so that was kind of cool – was just over the crest of the horizon, if still mostly blocked by trees. Everything was covered in a light, frosted dew, refreshing for now but promised thick humidity later.

She stretched for a moment, rotating her shoulders and cracking her back and, after taking a moment to look Hunk over (no bleed through, fairly steady pulse, smooth breathing), rose to her feet. Their sudden and alarming discovery of Hunk had derailed their earlier conversation, but Pidge hadn’t forgotten about their lack of footwear. Plus, having a problem to fix sounded a hell of a lot better than sitting in silence.

She made brief eye contact with Shiro from across the ash pile that had once been their fire, lifted her foot, and pointed meaningfully at its sole. Shiro’s initial confusion was clear, but eventually his furrowed brows smoothed and he nodded in permission, eyes effortlessly conveying what his mouth could not. _Be careful. Stay close._

 _What a freaking space dad_ , Pidge snorted to herself as she gave a sloppy salute and a skillful eyeroll. She got a snort in return that she was pretty sure would’ve sounded amused if it had made any sound at all. But it didn’t bother her, not Shiro’s muteness, not her deafness, not getting stuck on this hellhole of a planet, not _any_ of it, because she was a Paladin of Voltron and not some little kid from Arizona. And Paladins of Voltron weren’t so easily shaken.

And so, as a Paladin of Voltron, she set off from their makeshift campsite, scanning the ground for anything that could lend itself to shoe creation. She quickly ruled out the thick vines or leaves that littered the area – anything so cloth-like would be destroyed by the jungle floor in minutes. When she stumbled across some grayish reed-like grass, she briefly considered attempting to weave a shoe, but dismissed the idea a moment later. Even woven, she doubted it would hold up to the harsh terrain. She also didn’t know how to weave, which would probably prove problematic.

Being so focused on the forest floor, Pidge startled a bit when something _wet_ and _heavy_ plopped onto her head and nestled into her hair. Her hand reached back instinctively, remembering the last time a bird had taken a shit in her hair when she was nine and it had felt _exactly like this._ Matt had nearly pissed himself laughing. She had headbutted him, poop and all, in sweet retaliation.

Not spying any possible suspects in the branches above her, she turned her attention to the hand. The substance scooped onto her fingers didn’t look like any kind of bird poop she’d ever seen …not that she’d seen very much. There were the olive droppings left by Charlie, her uncle’s fourteen-year-old parrot. And there were the splatters of white and brown that decorated some windshields before their owners had the time to clean it off. And the owl pellet she picked apart in…sixth grade science?

In any case, this stuff seemed different, alien world or not. It was viscous and sticky, clear but tinted purple in a way that reminded Pidge of lavender hand soap. She took a careful whiff and immediately gagged. Nope, she confirmed as she held the offending goop at arm’s length, blinking tears from her eyes. As suspected, it did not smell like crap, but it was still definitely _bad_. Like a chunk of ham was soaked in milk and left out in the sun for three weeks. And then sprayed by a skunk. Thrice.

But the quick movement of flinging her hand away proved to be more consequential than Pidge expected. In an instant, the goo hardened, creating a violet shell over the pads of her index and ring fingers. In another context, Pidge would’ve found that nearly instantaneous reaction fascinating. But right now, it didn’t strike her as a scientific curiosity; no, it struck her as a solidified stink bomb that was now attached to her body. And that _sucked._

Releasing a groan she could not hear, Pidge brought her hand closer once again. Despite her awareness of the stench heightening her senses, the smell was still manageable if she didn’t breathe it in too directly.

She discovered rather quickly that the plastic-like casing was not going to simply break off; try as she might to separate her fingers, it was simply not going to happen. But the intense wiggling _did_ create a tiny gap between the skin on the outer-side of her index finger and the coating. Gleefully wedging her sizeable nails into the space – _how do ya like my nails now, Allura!_ – it only took a bit of effort for the shell to separate with a small, satisfying _pop!_

The released wave of demonic fumes, however, tempered the victory somewhat. Eyes burning, she hastily dropped the offending sheet, more than ready to resume her quest. But then she felt it bounce off her foot, triggering both the worst and best idea she’d had in a while.

Because this place seemed to be a lot like the Amazon back on Earth. And what did the ancient Amazons do for footwear?

They dipped their feet in rubber.

Pidge groaned again. _Aw, hell._

* * *

Lance woke up to a firm tapping on his shoulder. He groaned, eyes squeezing shut, because he had _just_ gotten comfortable and _surely_ he’d be forgiven for being a few minutes late to breakfast.

But then he felt the damp moss beneath his cheek and the scratchy cloth wrapped around his body and the dewy grass poking his toes and it was _wrong wrong wrong_ because none of it fit with his room in the Castle of Lions.

He groaned loudly when he remembered. The tapping turned to full-blown shaking.

“These hands better belong to Shiro,” Lance growled sleepily into the dirt. “Otherwise I’d much prefer to be asleep when the disembodied Hand Monster eats my face off.”

The shaking, mercifully, stopped. He heard shifting beside him – silent laughter? – before the same hand clapped him on the shoulder not currently burrowed in the soil. And despite everything, the nonverbal praise had Lance feeling lighter.

“Come on, Lance, get up,” Keith called from a little ways over, somewhere to his left. “Today’s not gonna be easy and we’ll all need to keep hydrated to get through it. Shiro found some…water.”

The pause wasn’t long, but it still promised nothing good. Lance, now sitting up, narrowed his eyes in the direction of Keith’s voice. “Lemme guess: it’s super gross.”

“What?” Keith replied, sounding startled. “No, Shiro used his Galra hand to boil it, so it should be clean enough.”

Lance frowned, unable to decide if Keith was purposefully evading his question or just honestly misinterpreting it. “That’s not what I meant.” A small, cylindrical object about the size of one of his skin care bottles – his second favorite face moisturizer that smelled like mint and honey, to be exact - was placed in his hand. Unlike the familiar bottle, however it felt bumpy and weirdly light…some kind of hollowed plant maybe? “On a scale of Hunk’s hot chocolate to nunvil, how bad is it?”

A pause.

“I’d take it like a shot if I were you.”

Lance’s frown deepened as unseeing eyes glared at the offending object in his hand. “That’s not reassuring,” he sighed at last, feeling resentment mount within him. This sucked. He didn’t want to drink the stupid jungle water. Or be in this stupid jungle to begin with. And above all, he didn’t want to be fumbling around here like a freaking idiot because the Onomatopoeia-whatever-assholes got their jollies by taking his sight away. He never really signed up to be a Paladin in the first place, but if he had, he _still_ wouldn’t have signed up for this.

But then those eyes were lighting up, because if there was one thing that would never fail to brighten his mood, it was a chance to make fun of the Red Paladin. “Oh my God, Keith, you don’t have any hands!” he exclaimed, grinning. “Shiro had to hold your glass for you, didn’t he?” Just the mental picture sent his shoulders shaking with mirth. He moaned dramatically, feigning distress, although the giggles peppered throughout dampened the effect somewhat. “Oh man, of all the times to go blind!”

But apparently Shiro (or the disembodied Hand Monster) hadn’t yet moved away, as Lance learned when the back of a hand cuffed the back of his head. It wasn’t anything damaging – obviously - but it still triggered a decent, if momentary, pang.

“Ouch, Shiro, I was just kidding around!” Lance most certainly did not whine, lifting his free hand to guard his head from any additional attacks. “Jeez, who whudda thought going mute would make you so mean?”

But despite his dramatics, Lance’s anxiety had begun to fester. Given Shiro’s involuntary silence and Lance’s inability to see, the younger boy had no idea how disappointed (i.e. adultese for angry) his leader was. The hit hadn’t been hard, but even a raging Shiro wouldn’t aim to actually hurt one of his team. Lance doubted he would have swatted him at all, except that the only way he could communicate to Lance was through touch.

Lance’s grip tightened around the bottle-ish container. He had only been teasing, like he and Keith always did. Well, he teased Keith, at least. Keith’s retorts were usually more like barks - or silent, like “accidently” tripping him during training.

Lance worried his bottom lip in the silence. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but could the comment have actually gone too far? Keith was clearly so independent and self-sufficient that such a jab should’ve only caused some light embarrassment, and Lance hadn’t even thought it would stir up that much. But what if he had accidently struck some kind of previously hidden sore spot? What if Keith was actually hurt? What if-

“Stop that,” Keith snapped, suddenly sounding a lot closer, as if he were leaning over Lance’s face. “You’ve already got a big mouth and chewing your lip off will only make it bigger.”

Relief flooded through Lance, although he sucked in an offended gasp for appearance’s sake. After all, he had an image to maintain. “You’re just jealous of my effortless charm, Mullet!” He huffed in what was hopefully the right direction. Then he shot an expectant look to his right, where he estimated Shiro (or, again, the Hand Monster, because nothing had really been confirmed on that front), pointing an accusatory finger at (fingers crossed) Keith. “And where exactly is his clap upside the head, oh wise, impartial Leader?”

Keith (who Lance suspected had walked away at this point) was apparently not in the mood to narrate, so all he got in response was a gentle squeeze of his bicep, but Lance thought he could sense a smile from the man. He hoped he wasn’t just imagining it. Then the sound of Shiro raising, leaves rustling in his wake, before a finger tapped pointedly on his water “glass.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled affectionately, waving the hand away. “Hydration is important, I get it. Man, I bet you were a boy scout all the way through high school.”

Keith snorted, but Lance was distracted by a warm hand descending on his head, praying that his startled flinch went unnoticed. He loved physical affection, just as much as he liked laughter and encouragement and even, on occasion, comfortable silences. But having the touches come out of nowhere made him uneasy. Shiro ruffled his hair once, probably only worsening the epic case of bedhead he was sure to already be sporting, and padded away.

Lance eyed (out of habit he supposed) the water in his hand, debating the best way of going about it. Taking a precautionary sniff or sip could help lessen his fears, although if the taste was actually as bad as he expected that would only make things worse. His throat urged him to just get on with it, suddenly having no qualms about alerting Lance to his incredible thirst.

So he decided to take both Keith’s and his throat’s advice, bringing the maybe-plant to his lips and tipping it back in one fell swoop.

That was when Lance learned why shots were so small. Any bigger than a roll of quarters and the contents couldn’t be swallowed in one go, turning what was supposed to be a swift glass-to-throat transfer into something between chugging and drowning with far, _far_ too much time on the tongue.

And you did not what this stuff anywhere _near_ your tongue, Lance decided. It was thicker and grainier than water had any right to be, tasting somewhere between iron-saturated well water and old pickle juice. It was warm too, almost hot, which Lance supposed was just the cherry on top of this shit sundae.

The Blue Paladin’s eyes teared as he sputtered when the flood finally ended, gagging and wiping any wayward droplets from his mouth with the back of his hand. God, now he realized it stunk too! Grimacing, Lance made sure to flick the moisture away before he could find out any more.

Having somewhat recovered, Lance could now feel someone patting his back, hard claps between his shoulder blades that were probably doing more to reassure him than anything directly helpful. Given how Hunk was still no doubt out of commission and Keith was incapable due to his sacrifice, Lance determined that it must be Shiro again. The hands were way too broad to belong to Pidge.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Lance reassured, reaching out an arm to pat Shiro’s shoulder. Well, seeing how he was blind and still very much choking, it was honestly more like a flail, but still.

Setting the empty vessel in his lap, Lance fumbled to find Hunk. Guilt and worry were suddenly warring in his stomach; here he had been making jokes while who knew what condition his best friend was in?

Despite falling asleep with his back up against his friend’s side, it took a minute of blind fumbling for his fingertips to locate the other boy, clutching what Lance guessed to be his coarse shirt. He must have shimmied away in his sleep, and the thought delivered a fresh pang of guilt to his already burdened conscious. What if Hunk had woken up in the middle of the night, alone and disoriented and in pain?

Lance heard Keith returning, perhaps summoned by another one of Shiro’s silent signals. There was a small _thunk_ in front of him and a little to his left, so that the three younger boys made a small triangle with their positions. “Hunk’s doing okay,” Keith murmured, and Lance thought he could make out a softness unrelated to his quiet tone.

Lance’s face crumpled despite the relief washing over him. Hunk was okay, thank _God_ , but he could have just as easily been _dead_. As far as Lance had known, he could have been sitting there cracking jokes, pouting over stinky water, next to the corpse of his best friend because he hadn’t spared a moment to ask about him.

To his alarm and utter shame, Lance felt his eyes begin to sting, lips already trembling. He blinked rapidly, sniffling, desperate to keep the tears at bay. This wasn’t about him, couldn’t by any stretch be about him, and he wasn’t about to selfishly make himself the center of attention - not now, when Hunk was so badly injured.

 _Not like you always do,_ a quiet, cruel voice whispered in the back of his mind.

Lance gulped, trying to banish that thought back to whatever dark corner it had come from. Truth or not, it was not helping him in the fight against a very public meltdown, and avoiding that was priority number one.

Lance twisted toward his best friend and shifted a bit closer, so that he could more easily reach Hunk’s head to card his fingers through his hair. A heavy arm fell across his shoulders, drawing him sideways to his left and into a broad chest. Lance hiccupped, knowing it was selfish but unable to turn away from the comfort Shiro provided.

“Bleed-through?” he managed to ask, taking deep breaths despite their shudders.

Keith was quiet for a moment, presumably checking the best he was able. “Not that I can see,” he said at last. “Shiro looked him over about an hour ago, and there wasn’t much then, not nearly enough to make it through his shirt. Given the extent of his injuries, that’s a good sign.”

The arm around his shoulder squeezed for a second in reassurance.

“Has he woken up?” Lance asked, and he could hear the some of the reclaimed steadiness in his voice. Thank God, his pride might just be able to limp out of this yet.

“Just long enough to drink some water,” Keith answered. “He wasn’t any happier about it, though. Personally, I think I’d prefer spoiled milk.”

Lance’s lips twitched at that, not because the comment was particularly funny, but because Keith was trying to cheer him up. “Or even that space lemonade Shiro tried to make, when he used salt instead of sugar?”

Keith actually laughed at that, and the sound brightened Lance’s mood even more. Shiro, meanwhile, was tilting away from him, as if the verbal jab had somehow turned physical. Which it did, in a way, because he was suddenly using his free hand to ruthlessly dig a finger into Lance’s vulnerable side.

“Hey!” Lance yelped, attempting to squirm away from the familiar tickle-pain combo that brought memories of middle school “tazerings” to the surface of his mind. Shiro’s arm, still wrapped around his shoulders, however, locked him mercilessly in place. “I’m unarmed! This is abuse! I-” His objections were stopped short as he laughed loudly, out of both joy and because he was honestly ticklish, a fact he had not known Shiro was privy to.

And despite Pidge having been the only one whose hearing had been taken, his cries nevertheless fell on deaf ears.

Still, Lance decided as he tried (and failed) to coordinate his arms into a counterattack, he couldn’t say he minded.

* * *

After the nastiest round of trial and error she had ever conducted (and this was very much including the time Matt volunteered her for one of their mother’s manure analyses), Pidge finally had an acceptable product.

There had been two key hurdles: first, the shoe needed to be multiuse, which included easy removal. Otherwise their feet would, following the accumulation of inevitable sweat, grow all sorts of gross fungi and bacteria – and that was the freaking last thing they needed. But that had meant the simplest solution of just slathering their feet with goo was out.

The second requirement was for it to have at least _some_ degree of flexibility. As Pidge had experienced years ago during her family’s one and only ski trip, clomping around in rigid metal boots was not only annoying but also burdensome and exhausting. Having her feet limited like that had been trying enough at a ski lodge; Pidge had absolutely no desire to try it in an alien jungle.

It took some time, but eventually she’d succeeded. It was basic in design – just two halves connected with twine-like reeds – but Pidge liked to think that added to its charm. Plus, the way the small gap that circled the arch of her foot like a rubber band had resolved both key issues was pretty clever and making sure the four holes for the reeds (one on each side of each piece, right on the edge) hadn’t filled during the drying process had taken some patience. So she was pretty sure she had earned a good pat on the back.

After that she simply had to knock down another couple goo-fruits (grapefruit looking things that, when cracked, freaking _oozed_ the stuff) collect a few more reeds, and make her way back to camp. As she walked, she evaluated the “shoe” on her left foot (she’d decided to just wait and make its mate with the others). Yeah, it was a little clunky and yeah, the smell wafted up with every step, but all in all it was working. And she could live with that.

She arrived back at camp to the sight of…well, she wasn’t exactly sure what. By the looks of it, Shiro was gleefully tickle and/or stabbing Lance in the side, who Pidge guessed to be laughing, although his squirming prevented an accurate read. Keith, meanwhile, silently watched on not a foot away, confusion and amusement warring openly on his face. As she approached, he turned the odd expression toward her, and Pidge was struck by how seldom Keith’s face looked that unguarded. The thought was unnerving, and she shook it away. There’d be time to dwell on that after they were all safe and sound in the Castle.

“Cool, I didn’t know we could torture Lance now!” she offered cheerfully, relishing in the rarity of _her_ being the one to loom above the others.

Shiro jumped in response, her arrival clearly catching him by surprise, and Lance took the opportunity for all it was worth. He scooted from underneath Shiro’s momentarily lax arm - and would have dived straight into Pidge’s shins if she hadn’t stumbled out of the way just in time. As it was, he ended up sitting right beside her, fingers curling unnecessarily into the hem of her skirt like a shy child might with his mother.

“Pidge!” he panted, clearly winded from his recent torment and escape. “Thank God you’re here! I don’t know what I would have- holy cheese, what _stinks_?”

“That would be our footwear,” she answered blandly, extending her covered foot slightly so that the other two paladins could get a better look.

Keith and Shiro leaned over to inspect her creation in unison, both clearly intrigued, before tilting away just as fast. Shiro’s nose was scrunched in displeasure while Keith had been launched into a coughing fit, eyes watering.

“Freaking great!” Lance moaned, shifting away as the smell no doubt assaulted his nostrils. “Does anything on this planet not stink?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late(ish) update! My life has been busy lately, and, despite having unusually high motivation over the weekend, I was separated from my laptop.  
> A big thank you to all who reviewed! I felt so inspired to write/finish this chapter, and the reviews I got were a HUGE reason for that. I'd love to see some responses to this chapter as well, particularly because it helps me write, which in turn gets the story out there quicker. Everyone wins!  
> On that note, **I actually have a request from all of you.** I forgot to mention it last time, but part of the reason I sat on this fic for so long is that I was afraid it would seem...ableist, to be frank. What I _hope_ to portray is how people without these particular qualities (muteness, deafness, blindness...no arms?) would respond to their sudden appearance, in a very stressful and trying environment, no less. But if it comes off as insulting or ignorant, (1) I'm super sorry and (2) I'd really appreciate a heads up and perhaps some suggestions so that I can remedy it.  
> With all that said, I hope you enjoyed! **If you have the time, please post a quick review** \- your favorite scene, piece of dialogue, or just something that popped out would be incredibly helpful! Criticism is also welcome!


	3. Death Incarnate

They spent the next hour or so crafting their shoes the way Pidge demonstrated, although both Lance and Keith required assistance from the other two Paladins. Keith wasn’t thrilled with anyone touching him anywhere in the best of times, much less his bare feet in the middle of an alien jungle. And he supposed that vibe must’ve been coming off pretty strongly, judging by how fast Pidge retracted her offer to help and the speed Shiro used to swoop in instead. But still, even with Shiro being the one to help him, Keith could only stand so many repeated poppings of his personal bubble before something within him buckled under the pressure.

And Lance’s endless blathering about it being sorta like a stinky alien pedicure was certainly not helping matters either.

But as if all that wasn’t enough, the whole setup was just a little too reminiscent of Shiro helping him lace up his Garrison-issued boots when he was a new cadet with a very broken wrist. Even then, Keith had been so mortified at the thought that Shiro had been forced to essentially corner him in the commissary to do it, insisting that he’d get written up for violating the dress code if he didn’t trip and break his neck first.

And judging by the grin Shiro was sporting, he was recalling the same thing. Bastard wasn’t even trying to hide it.

So, when Shiro _finally_ backed off his feet to sit beside him, it was all Keith could do to keep himself from physically wilting with relief. Honestly, he thought such a reaction would be totally deserved, but it could also lead to questions and since Shiro could still “speak” with Pidge…well, he wasn’t about to risk that story getting out.

“Well, this stinks,” Lance announced once everyone was finished. He was leaning away from his new “shoes” to Keith’s left, legs stretched out and palms planted behind him.

Keith was an observant guy – a natural born quality that he’d had no choice but to perfect early on. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that he could easily pick out the wrinkling of Lance’s nose, the deep bags under his eyes that hollowed religiously well-kept skin, the slumped shoulders. Or the way Lance’s eyes were set in a perpetual squint, as if his sight would return by sweat and strain alone, or how his hands fisted and relaxed rhythmically in the silvery grass.

Information like this only took a moment to collect, Keith’s eyes so accustomed to scanning that he was barely conscious of the action until his mind buzzed with the sheer quantity of details. He felt that buzz now, as if there were a million gnats bouncing in his brain, each with its own snippet of intel - not painful exactly but insistent and moving _fast_.

But whatever it was – be it fate or God or just plain old genetics – that gave him such a skill must’ve been a real shit planner, because he now had all this _stuff_ gumming up his brain without a _freaking clue_ of what it could mean. But how could he? People were impossible to nail down– too unpredictable, to duplicitous, too good at showing one thing and feeling another.

He didn’t understand why he was the only one that seemed to notice.

But that was beside the point. The most Keith could comfortably ascertain was that Lance was stressed – maybe a bit nervous or worried too. But that wasn’t exactly helpful – with the technical exception of Hunk, they were all feeling strained to some degree. They’d been thrown in an alien jungle with no supplies and severe handicaps, after all; relaxation wasn’t really on the menu.

Keith’s eye twitched. If anything, Lance’s comment made even less sense than before. But Shiro couldn’t respond, and he couldn’t tell if Pidge had “heard” in the first place. Any other day, Keith would have been tempted to let it hang in the silence, but without Lance being able to see that they were all still there…?

No. Lance could be annoying (and he was, constantly), but he didn’t deserve that.

So Keith frowned at his shoes and said, “Pidge already told us that it shouldn’t last forever. We just have to stick it out until then.”

“What?” Lance responded, sightless eyes turned in Keith’s direction. “No, I’m not- not _literally,_ Keith -although yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d take sunbaked roadkill over whatever this stuff is. Honestly, I’m about this close-” he raised a hand, fingers pinching the air “-to pulling a Hunk, and I’ve got a pretty strong stomach for this sort of thing. I mean, given the amount of times I’ve seen Hunk vomit-”

“Lance!” Pidge interrupted, wanting to reorient the kid’s train of thought before it went permanently off the rails.

If Keith had any faith in his ability to read body language, he would have described Lance’s new expression as decidedly sheepish. “Right, sorry. Um, well, it’s actually not that important,” the Blue Paladin hedged, offering an uncharacteristically self-conscious smile, “but I was talking about our situation. It stinks. Figuratively, you know?”

It wasn’t the most insightful observation, but it certainly wasn’t wrong either.

“Shiro says it’ll be fine if we stick together and believe in ourselves,” Pidge offered dully.

Keith glanced to the man on his right, scanning his eyes over the lowered eyebrows and tight lips. “I don’t think that’s what he said,” Keith demurred slowly, his frown reappearing to echo Shiro’s.

“I paraphrased.”

Keith opened his mouth to object again but was halted by a swift shake of Shiro’s head. _Not important. Focus. Rally the team. Be the leader I know you can be._

Keith sucked in a silent breath, centering himself. Sure, half of the time he couldn’t tell if Lance was making fun of him or just goofing around, but Shiro could stuff all that nonsense into one look. If there was ever a time Keith wanted to be oblivious to the intricacies of human expression, this would have been it. But things were never so easy - not for him, at least.

“Well, if Shiro says that we can do it,” he began clunkily, words rolling oddly on his tongue, “then I believe him.”

There was a soft thud to his left as Lance collapsed backwards at the same moment Shiro beamed. Keith ignored the both of them.

“We should start figuring out our next steps,” he continued, grateful to have finally arrived on familiar ground. Keith processed people the way most people process quantum physics, but battle plans? That he could do.

“I vote for a nap,” Lance offered with a yawn.

Keith’s eye twitched again. At this rate, he’d be lucky to survive this mission without a permanent tick. “You only woke up an hour ago.”

The boy huffed, sounding genuinely affronted. “Yeah, well, it’s dark and I’m hot. Or it’s hot and I’m blind. Either way, it’s not my fault for feeling sleepy.”

To hell with Shiro’s stupid expectations, Keith could only weather so much before his patience simply ran out. “Goddamn it, Lance!” he snarled, bound fists clenching. “We’ve already wasted enough time sitting on our asses! We need to-”

“You’re an ass!”

The interruption cut through Keith’s tirade with ease, leaving him feeling winded and off-kilter. He turned to the girl automatically, blinking in confusion at the red, scowling face that greeted him. Even he could tell that that wasn’t a happy expression.

Where anger and resentment might have reared with anyone else, Keith only felt guilt. Apart from Shiro, Pidge was easily the team member he related to most. It wasn’t because they were particularly alike – she was a genius and felt her emotions passionately and openly, two qualities Keith quietly envied. But even so, they were both intensely introverted, tending toward isolation over human companionship and committing the (more than) occasional social faux pas, and this created a fundamental understanding between the two. Despite only knowing the girl for a few months, he could relax around her, free from treating every spoken word like a potential landmine or pathetically fleeing conversations in search of silence. Such relationships didn’t come easily for Keith, and he’d come to rely on it since being launched into space. 

But such an understanding meant that Keith wasn’t accustomed to receiving Pidge’s unbridled rage. He didn’t quite know how to react to it; hell, he didn’t even know what could’ve set it off.

“Not a waste,” Lance, apparently able to decipher the emotions of others like a goddamn feelings wizard, interjected tiredly from his sprawled spot on the ground.

_Oh. Whoops._

“Goodbye shoes, hello pain,” he concluded sagely.

Unable to squarely meet Pidge’s fiery gaze, Keith stared at her forehead instead as he formulated a proper response. Old words echoed in his head, unbidden and unwanted and painful.

_What a rude little brat._

_I’ll teach you to watch your mouth!_

_Children should be seen, not heard._

_You ungrateful piece of shit!_

_Open your mouth again and I’ll have it wired shut._

“Sorry,” he ultimately decided on, the word sounding clumsy in spite of his sincerity. “I shouldn’t have said ‘wasted.’ That was stupid of me. But we need to get going, okay? And before we can do that, we need to work out a plan.”

Pidge blinked, face immediately relaxing. “Oh,” she replied, sounding a mixture of surprised and perplexed. “Right, that makes sense.” She offered Keith a strained, almost apologetic smile. “I shouldda thought of that to begin with. This heat…it’s making it hard to think clearly, I guess.”

Keith smiled tiredly back. She had a point – and for that matter, so did Lance. The cool morning air had quickly turned stifling, and everyone was already coated in a thick sheen of sweat, despite having spent the day so far almost entirely on their rears. Keith had figured that his time on watch was the reason he felt so exhausted, but that didn’t make a lot of sense; after all, it usually took a couple days or at least a particularly hard battle before he felt this sluggish.

Plus, Lance and Pidge had had a full night’s sleep, and it only took a glance at Shiro to confirm that he was struggling to hide the same issue. Never mind the fact that Hunk, laying just a few feet behind Pidge, had barely woken up since they’d applied what meager aid they could.

Keith’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You don’t think they could’ve done something to us, do you?”

Pidge’s eyes brightened, drowsy glaze receding at least for the moment, as she grasped Keith’s clumsy words. “What, the Ombians?” She frowned, considering. “It’s possible, I guess, but I kind of doubt it. I mean, everything so far has come with some sort of explanation-”

Shiro pointed at his flesh arm, the tar colored words shimmering in his skin.

“Like our missing senses,” she affirmed. “But not just that either. Remember back when we were on the Castle of Lions? Just a few seconds before everything went dark, they gave us the same sort of explanation.”

Lance, finally sitting up, snorted loudly. “Yeah. Some cryptic BS with a complimentary migraine.”

Pidge shrugged. “Sure, but it still counts.”

Keith frowned. “Okay, so we got a couple of hints in the beginning. Who’s to say that that wasn’t just to start us off? Or that it’ll continue for the rest of our ‘test’ or whatever?”

Pidge pursed her lips, fingers absentmindedly tangling themselves into the hem of her dress. “That could be true, I guess. But poisoning or drugging us still doesn’t square with what we’ve seen of them. So far, they’ve been acting with a sort of fairness-”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lance deadpanned. Judging by the way Shiro’s eyebrows had rose incredulously, he was having a similarly tough time believing Pidge’s assessment. Keith couldn’t help but share their sentiments.

“So ‘fairness’ wasn’t the best word,” Pidge conceded quickly, hands raised in placatory surrender. “But whatever you want to call it, the Ombians seem to be working within some sort of moral code. Think about it. What happened on the ship suggests that they have some kind of telepathic access into our heads, right?”

The three nodded.

“And that’s pretty much proven by their ability to assign their ‘sacrifices,’” she continued, sneering the Orwellian word as if personally offended by its existence. “They need to know us in order to do that so precisely – that Lance is our sharpshooter, that Keith acts impulsively, even that Shiro is the leader.”

Keith sucked in a tiny breath of comprehension. _“‘Answers from the inquisitive,’ apparently. Honestly, it seems like a bit of a leap in comparison to the rest of yours, but I guess there’s only so many senses to take before-”_ How had she realized something so convoluted so quickly? It’s not like Keith hadn’t noticed how personally inhibiting each sacrifice was, how tailored they seemed to be, but he’d barely given it a second thought.

“So they looked into our heads?” Lance concluded mournfully. “Awesome. It’s a miracle they didn’t figure out something worse to steal.”

Pidge shook her head. “No, that’s exactly my point. If they can find out all that stuff about us, then surely they could’ve inflicted something even more inhibiting.” She paused, casting a clinical look Keith’s way. “Why not fully immobilize Keith, instead of just binding his arms? And perhaps even more telling, why take away the hearing of the only lip-reader on the team? It’s because they’re trying to test us, just like they said. They don’t want to cripple us into failure, otherwise they would’ve done it.”

“And you think they’d see poisoning or whatever as going too far?” Lance asked, still looking doubtful.

Pidge shrugged again. “It’s not like I can say for certain, but yeah, that’s what it looks like to me. I mean, we’re on an alien planet with no armor or environmental testing equipment. If anything’s going to be negatively affecting us, an unfamiliar atmosphere or pathogen is a more likely bet.”

Alarm flitted throughout the remainder of the group, shocking even Lance into an uneasy quiet. Shiro was the first to recover, tapping Pidge’s knee with authoritative urgency as he began his silent communication.

“Shiro’s talking,” Keith quietly reported to Lance, such clarifications quickly becoming habit. Lance just nodded, nibbling lightly on his bottom lip.

Pidge was grimacing once he’d finished. “There’s not much we _can_ do, at least not that I know of. Right now, this jungle is our biggest threat.” Pidge huffed out an aggravated sigh, twisting a bit to glance regretfully at the boy sleeping behind her before facing the team once again. “With a little _know-how_ , it’s possible we could actually turn it into an advantage, but we’d need Hunk for that. It’s possible that he could recognize some of the local plant life from his time in the kitchen, which theoretically could mean we’d get some insight into the ecosystem.” Pidged paused, closing her eyes and sucking in a steadying breath. The action echoed painfully in the hollow of Keith’s chest, but before he could dwell on it, her eyes were popping back open. “But since he’s still out of action, we’ll just need to be careful and hope that a cryopod can fix whatever we come across.”

That was not a thought Keith wanted to dwell on -and judging by the almost palpable souring of the team’s morale, better they didn’t either.

“Well, that’s all the more reason to get moving,” Keith pronounced, sitting up a little straighter. “We should make a plan.”

Shiro offered something then, which was quickly translated by Pidge. “Shiro wants to know if anyone can feel their lion.” She frowned, wiping her sweat-soaked bangs back with a pass of her hand. “That’s a no for me,” she added dejectedly.

Lance rubbed at his face, likely trying to wake himself up. “Ditto.”

“Same here,” Keith answered.

Shiro shook his head, his face smooth, although Keith could see the disappointment he was desperately trying to bury.

“So we can’t rely on the lions to help us,” Keith summarized. “What else?”

“Well, we’re on Plexa,” Pidge reminded them. “The Ombians’ home planet. So there should be some sort of civilization somewhere.”

Keith frowned, shoulders tensing instinctively. “Even if we were able to locate it, I don’t like the idea of walking into an entire neighborhood of Ombians without our gear. They could be hostile.”

Pidge shrugged. “If they wanted us dead or captured, we already would be. Plus, we won’t be able to survive in this jungle forever.”

Shiro nodded. _Best shot,_ he mouthed slowly, punctuating his point by imitating a pistol with his hand. Keith couldn’t tell if he meant it to be funny, but his lips quirked anyway.

Shiro smiled back.

“Okay, so now we have an objective,” Keith announced, schooling his expression (leaders don’t giggle, dammit). He still wasn’t thrilled with the idea of strolling up to a possible nest of enemies unarmed, but Shiro was the leader and Pidge was the smartest person on their team, so maybe he was just being overly pessimistic. He doubted it, but to Pidge’s credit, it did certainly beat the alternative of slowly dying in the jungle. “Now we just have to figure out a way to get there.”

“One of us could scale a tree?” Lance suggested. “Maybe we could see the town from here. I’d volunteer to do it, but…” he made a lazy gesture at his eyes and shrugged.

Given his naturally sharp eyes and grace, Keith would have been the next logical choice…had his arms been free. Dammit. “Same here,” he offered bitterly.

“Then I guess I’m up,” Pidge declared, rising to her feet and dusting off her hands.

“Wait a sec,” Lance interjected, holding up a hand. “Shouldn’t Shiro maybe be the one to do this? He’s the only one with a weapon and there could be, like, space panthers up there or something.”

Keith laughed as a blush stole across Shiro’s cheeks. “Oh trust me, that would be a _terrible_ idea.”

\--

Although she would never admit it, Pidge was typically thankful for her slight figure; it helped her blend in and become part of the background, something she discovered early on in school and continued to use to her advantage in space. Perhaps more importantly, at least when it came to dodging sentries instead of playground bullies, it gave her options - like vents. And honestly, ever since she first used them to reconquer the Castle, Pidge had really started to love vents.

But this jungle had no fucking vents – or hallways, or windows, or anything but trees and brush and gunk. And while she spent half her time tripping over the layer of plants covering the jungle floor, the trees were much less accessible to those of Pidge’s stature. That was, of course, excluding the nearly six-foot-wide trunk, but unless she learned how to fly real quick, she was going to need the branches.

“Stupid fucking piss-colored monster tree,” she grouched quietly, although judging by the admonishing flick on her bicep, she guessed she hadn’t been quiet enough. She turned to face Shiro, who had stood up at this point and looked to be less than pleased with her choice of words.

“Language,” he chided, his tone (had there been one) probably a mixture of authoritative and resigned, before craning his neck to gaze up into the tree’s monstrous heights. Unlike Pidge, however, he seemed to be in awe of the thing. Pidge scowled.

Keith and Lance chose that moment to suddenly rise from their spots as well, setting off in the direction Pidge had dubbed, given its relationship to the Superman Sun, “New West.” For a moment she just stared after them, waiting for some sort of explanation, because Keith might be a quiet loner, but Lance talked about _everything_ and to leave without a word would just be weird. It took her longer than she would have liked before to realize that one of them (Lance) had probably already given it.

Whatever. Shiro didn’t look bothered, so there was nothing for her to worry about. They were probably just doing some reconnaissance, scope out the local area, no big deal.

Feeling another tap on her shoulder, Pidge was startled out of her thoughts. When she eventually refocused on Shiro’s face, his lips were dipped in concern, eyes soft. “What’s wrong?”

Pidge’s scowl deepened, resisting the urge to simply look away and stiff the conversation. Nothing was wrong, nothing personal to her anyway. But Shiro sure seemed to think so; after all, he hadn’t asked _if_ something was upsetting her – no, he’d said “ _What’s_ wrong?” as if he’d already successfully determined the first question on his own. Which he hadn’t. Because nothing was wrong. “Other than being stuck in an alien jungle?” she sniped, tone barbed but not overtly aggressive. “Nothing.”

Shiro’s frown deepened, eyes roaming her expression. “You’re upset about something.”

Pidge sighed, swiping sweat-soaked bangs from her forehead. “I’m really not. If you really want to worry about someone, worry about Lance,” she offered, both because it was a convenient twist to this conversation and because it was probably true. “He might still be making jokes, but he’s clearly struggling. For all his bravado, he’s actually got a pretty thin skin, and he reads into things a lot.” She shrugged, pulling at her dress. “I dunno, it’s just something to think about.”

Shiro regarded her for a long moment, but Pidge couldn’t tell if he was considering her words or debating if he should call her out on her evasion. Either way, he eventually nodded, a small smile softening his features. “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks,” he answered. “In the meantime, want a boost?”

Pidge smiled back, something warm unfurling where irritation had once nested. “Yeah, a boost’d be nice.” She flicked her eyes away from her leader, momentarily relinquishing her “hearing,” to consider the tree once more. “I think I see a sturdy enough branch about four feet above you, and a little to the left,” she reported, pointing in the limb’s direction. “Think we can manage?”

Shiro scanned the indicated area, easily locating his target. When he looked back, he was grinning. “Oh yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem.” Then he slipped into a crouch, stance widening, and laced his fingers together. “Ready?”

Pidge blinked in surprise. This wasn’t the lean, practical, no-nonsense _climb my shoulders_ approach she had expected. No, that was the pose Matt would choose - _had chosen_ – every time they decided the perfect place to chill just happened to be the top of the biggest tree behind their house, or when they hopped a fence just to get a peek at some tech that wasn’t technically open for public viewing. Right down to the stupid grin.

Pidge felt her own grin sharpen, prized pieces of her life as Katie rooting seamlessly into her life as Pidge. Feelings she hadn’t even realized were missing suddenly flared into her consciousness: sense of pride, of fierce, wild adventure, of knowing the only difference between where she is now and where she could be is a belief in herself and her abilities. This had nothing to do with Pidge Gunderson the Communications Cadet or Katie Holt, the Tech Genius or even Pidge Holt, the Green Paladin of Voltron. No, this was just about _her,_ about the person behind all the names and titles. And that person? That person could kick some ass.

“Always.”

Taking a few steps back, she launched herself at Shiro, planting her right foot into his palms with remembered ease. Shiro, to Katie’s delight, performed perfectly, redirecting her momentum as his body straightened, before pumping his arms powerfully upward.

Pidge laughed as she was propelled into the air, eyes locked on her chosen branch. Within seconds it was in reach, and despite the thrill of the journey, she wasted no time wrapping her hands around it’s girth, her legs quickly following suit.

Pulling herself up to rest where branch met trunk, she inhaled deeply, excitement and adrenaline rich in her veins, and resisted the urge to let out a small whoop. Instead, she leaned over a bit and shot Shiro a thumbs up and another grin.

Shiro returned it, followed by something that could have been (and probably was) a warning to stay safe. It was a little hard to tell for sure, given her angle and new height advantage, but she figured that was a pretty good bet.

“I’m going up!” she called back, already charting the best route onwards. “The trees around here are pretty tall though, so it’ll take me a bit to get above the canopy. I’ll try to be back in twenty, but no promises.”

Glancing at Shiro for one last confirmation - yep, thumbs up – was all she needed to really begin.

Pidge was a tech wizard and a math prodigy, but she also excelled at climbing trees. It wasn’t a skill she got to use much since Kerberos – she’d been too busy investigating the “crash” and, following her admission into the Galaxy Garrison, actually studying enough to pass her classes. Unsurprisingly, space provided even fewer opportunities, given how it often didn’t have trees, and, when it did, her time and attention were needed for the mission or checking out alien tech. Considering the many sacrifices she’d already made to become a Paladin, it hadn’t felt like that big of a deal.

But as she continued to scale the tree one limb at a time, Pidge could admit that she’d missed it. The feeling of freedom, of adventure, of using every muscle in her body to balance and lift and strain and swing was so tied to the act of climbing that it made the experience uniquely wonderful. She loved being a Paladin and she loved flying Green, and both of those things were incredible and indescribable and miraculous. But this feeling belonged to her, in the same way her house and Matt and her parents and late-night roof conversations belonged to her. And that made it special.

There was a single moment, when she broke the canopy, that stole Pidge’s breath away. The sun was high in the sky at this point, lighting up the brilliant hues of red and orange of the treetops that seemed to span forever like a living sunset. Monkey-like creatures bounded from tree to tree like jumping fish, swinging themselves high into the air with each pass, while rhino-sized, rainbow-colored birds sailed overhead. The wind rolled constantly, setting the leaves twitching in eternal motion and giving the impression of crimson waves that lapped at the violet-tinged horizon. The only interruption was a single churning river, which cut a winding path parallel to the horizon before twisting east-ward toward the rising sun.

It was incredible.

It couldn’t last.

Just as Pidge was able to shake off the dumbstruck awe that had filled her head at the sight, she sensed that something was off. Her instincts were screaming at her to run, that something wasn’t right, that she needed to get moving _now._ The jungle almost seemed to agree with her, as it sent hundreds of yellow and blue birds, each about the size of Bae-Bae, into flight overhead.

It was as if they were following the monkeys. As if they were following the rainbow-birds.

As if they were _fleeing._

Heart thundering, Pidge turned around.

An enormous plume of smoke billowed up from the forest, darkening the western sky with noxious fumes. The canopy no longer looked like a rolling, red ocean; it looked like death incarnate. And judging by the direction of the wind, it was coming straight for them.

Pidge raced down the tree, any enjoyment in the act gone. She needed to get back to Shiro, to the others, and urgency transformed her descent from a climb into a barely controlled fall. Ridged bark bit into her palms and tore at her skin while leaves and twigs clawed at her face, but she barely noticed. She needed to hurry. She needed to _run._

Her landing was heavy and awkward, and it sent unpleasant shockwaves ringing up her legs. Shiro visibly started at her sudden entrance, concern tinged with mild disapproval coloring his features. But Pidge didn’t give him a chance to elaborate.

“Forest fire!” she blurted between pants, pointing toward the invisible danger. “We have to go!”

Fear flashed in Shiro’s eyes as adrenaline no doubt flooded his body. He cast a desperate look in the direction of her finger, before turning back to her. His expression was grim, determined. “I’m going to find Keith and Lance.”

Pidge froze. _Oh my God._

But Pidge grabbed his arm as he made to brush past her, stopping him.

“You’re the only one who can move Hunk!” she argued, eyes pleading. “You have to take him and make for the river – it’s only a mile due east,” she gestured in the appropriate direction. “It’s our only chance. I’ll find the others; we’ll catch up to you!”

Pidge could see Shiro’s jaw muscles flex as he clenched his teeth, balled fists shaking. He closed his eyes for just a moment, shuddering, but when they popped back open, he nodded. “Okay,” he conceded, sounding for all the world like a man admitting defeat. He pulled her into a quick, desperate hug, before adding, “Go, be great.”

Blinking away her tears, Pidge dashed into the coming flames.

If the jungle had been difficult to navigate before, taking it at a sprint certainly made it no easier. “Lance!” she screamed, her throat straining for volume she could not hear. “Keith!” Her eyes scanned the jungle methodically, frantically, desperate for any sign of her teammates. She willed her legs to go faster, over yellow logs and under purple vines, because the fire was coming and she was going _too damn slow._

“Please!” she begged, not knowing who she expected to answer such a prayer. “Please, Lance, Keith! We need to run!” Over another fallen log, through a web of roots, she had to keep going, keep going, _keep going!_

In a strange, crystallized moment between footfalls, it occurred to her that she never found out what it was her friends said before they left for the west. It occurred to her that she might never know.

“Keith!” she shouted, half command, half plea. “Lance! We need to go, we have to-”

She was interrupted as she slammed bodily into a big solid _something_ , an obstacle that had arisen between her methodic scanning of the area. She crashed into a thicket of blue brush, landing hard on her rear.

When she looked up, it was Keith’s enraged face that greeted her. Lance was trailing behind him, fingers locked into the ropes binding Keith’s arms.

The relief that assailed her was indescribable, and for a moment all she could do was stare at her friends.

“What in the hell, Pidge!” Keith snapped, clearly not caught in the same emotional torrent as his fellow paladin. “Get up, we need to get out of here!”

That was all she needed to bring her back into the moment. Pidge nodded, accepting the hand Lance extended down to her and using it to pull her to her feet. “There’s a river we can use for cover about a mile out,” she reported, wheezing from the constant running. “Shiro and Hunk are already on route. With any luck, we’ll be able to meet up with them on the way.”

Keith nodded, lips thin. And then they ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so terribly long to get out! I had to move back from Germany _and_ into my new apartment in the States all in the same month, so things have been busy. In any case, thank you for reading, and a big special thank you to everyone who commented! I wasn't able to respond to everyone due to the aforementioned craziness, but I read and appreciate each note.   
> If you want to see more quickly, leave a comment below! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Please, please take the time to write me a quick comment below! What takes you minutes to read takes me hours, days...longer...to write, so some nice words or feedback just warms my heart. Plus, I'm not a professional writer/anything, so I can't/don't force myself to write when I'm unmotivated because 1) it's not fun and that kinda defeats the point and 2) it's either total shit or kind of okay but took 5x the effort. The reason I'm telling you this is because if there's one thing that is guaranteed to boost my motivation, it's reviews!  
> In short: more reviews = quicker updates (not because I'm holding my writing hostage but because it's hard to otherwise produce it)  
> Thanks for reading!


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